Intrinsick
  • Stories
  • Lowdown

The Seven Verses of Grief

8/14/2016

 
BY MICHAEL McCLELLAND
​
Picture
Painting by Casey McClelland

​As the door shuts quietly behind Christopher I throw my bowl of raspberries and cream at it, hoping for a cathartic explosion of porcelain and blood red fruit pulp. But our damned loft is so huge the bowl arcs limply and thuds onto our wine-barrel floor, a single crack down its center releasing the little raspberries. They skitter across the floor like hermit crabs searching for a new home. 

​
After fifteen years, Christopher has just announced he is leaving me, saying he didn’t want to, but it was what we need for our next album to thrive. 

“We’ll be like Fleetwood Mac,” he said, casually, like saying “we’ll be like the Thompsons in 2B.” (We won’t actually be like the Thompsons in 2B. They smell like asparagus and are worth a hundred million.) 

“They were all breaking up and fighting when they wrote Rumours,” he said, staring at his phone screen, not me, “and it’s one of the best albums of all time.” 

“Their next album was Tusk, which means cock!” I screeched back at him. “I take it you’ll be writing that one?” 

​Some context: We are the world’s first and only chart-topping gay-husband pop duo. I write the music; Christopher sings lead vocals. I also play the piano and sing back up. His job is to look and sound pretty. Our first two albums both went platinum. Our third, an ill-advised folksy tribute to our attempts to adopt a child, had flopped. Hence Christopher’s decision to join Grindr and move into our country house, leaving me alone in our Soho loft to write our fourth album, which was supposed to be about going back to our roots. 
​
We met at the Georgia State Fair. He showed up in the livestock tent, his midnight black skin the exact opposite of the cow’s milk that had dominated my life up to that point. I practically panted as I told him everything there was to know about my family’s herd of blue-ribbon Jerseys. 

But this fourth album, “A Fair to Remember,” had not been going well. We’d written and performed both of our first two albums, “Christopher Street” (also the name of our band) and “Edie Windsor” in a flurry of sexual and creative energy. Success had come fast and easy. Now, after the disaster of “Rainbow Child,” I was self-conscious about my writing. 

I should clean up the raspberries. Instead, I go into the writing room, sit down in my writing corner, a nest of silk pillows and cashmere scarves. I leaf through my notebook, ignoring the snot and tears falling onto my words. 

I open to the page where I’ve been writing the album’s titular song. All we’d decided on thus far was the chorus, a monotonous falsetto that would crescendo hauntingly: I’m coming to the fair tonight. 

I need to lay down some verses, some clever plays on words. I need to channel my grief and rage into musical brilliance. But what Christopher had failed to realize was that I’d written our best material when I’d been happiest. 

Verse One: Denial 

I’m coming to the fair tonight. 

He’ll remember. When he hears this, he’ll remember and he’ll come back. God, I’m such a cliché. 

Verse Two: Regret 

I’m firing the au pair tonight. 

We hired an au pair before we even got a baby. Christopher said, “We should get to know her, since she’ll basically be raising our kid.” That stuck with me, a splinter that gradually grew infected. We couldn’t have a baby! We were busy and selfish. Christopher was a scataphobe – how could he change a diaper? I fired the au pair, told Christopher I wasn’t ready. 

Verse Three: Anger 

I’m breaking Fiestaware tonight. 

Our décor is modern, and Christopher doesn’t cook. He barely eats. Yet he collects garish, bumpkinish Fiestaware plates, cups, saucers, and bowls. I’m going to break every last piece. 

Verse Four: Loneliness 

I’m eating éclairs tonight. 

I haven’t eaten a pastry since our honeymoon. I’ll have a dozen tonight. I’ll let my body go. We honeymooned in Paris. We sat at cafés and ate croissants and éclairs and we went to Sephora before it was popular and bought so much soap and eye cream that we had to buy an extra suitcase 

Verse Five: Hope

I’m opening for Cher tonight.

I’ll get my own record deal, and it will be huge. Not as huge as we were, but comfortably huge. I won’t have my own arena tour; I’ll open for Cher. That’s the dream, isn’t it? And Christopher will see me, successful and independent, and he’ll remember that boy who showed him how to milk a cow all of those years ago. 


Verse Six: Reconstruction 

I’m dancing with bears tonight. 

I always seem to attract bears. Maybe because I’m slender, fine boned. Maybe they want to take care of me. But I’ve never dated one. I’ve only dated Christopher. I’ll get together with some friends, who had better choose me in the divorce, and go to some dirty bear bar. I’ll let them buy me drinks. And when one of our songs comes on, I’ll kiss one of them, out of spite. 

Verse Seven: Acceptance 

You’re having an affair tonight. 
​

This is all that really matters, isn’t it? I would have given up all of the music for Christopher, and he gave me up for the music. When he gets home, he won’t find any broken Fiestaware (okay, maybe that hideous gravy boat in forget-me-not blue). He won’t find an empty donut box (I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction). He won’t find any XXL leather harnesses and jockstraps (that’s what bears wear, isn’t it?). And he won’t find me. 
​

Like Sharon Stone and the zipper, Mike McClelland is originally from Meadville, Pennsylvania. He has lived on five different continents but now resides in Georgia with his husband and a menagerie of rescue dogs. He often collaborates on projects with his brother, Casey (an artist), and his work has appeared in several anthologies and in publications such as Permafrost, Heavy Feather Review, ink&coda, Cactus Heart, and Poetry Pacific, among others. Keep up with him at magicmikewrites.com.

#
​
Casey McClelland is a painter, potter, and assemblist. Originally from Pennsylvania, Casey has studied at Edinboro University but is primarily a student of the school of life. His technique is largely self-taught and experimental, he often collaborates with his brother Mike (a writer), and he enjoys spending his days trying new and exciting things. He lives in Georgia with his family. Find him on Instagram @artbycasey

Read Michael's Sixer   |   Back to Intrinsick 2.1

Comments are closed.
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Recommended
    ​Readings 
    Picture
    Slurpie Safari
    ​Sorrel Westbrook-Wilson
    Bartleby Snopes
    Picture
    domo slurpee / Rakka / Flickr

    Monthly Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    September 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015


    Picture
    Intrinsick 1.0
    Picture
    Intrinsick 2.0
    Picture
    ​© Intrinsick 2015-2021
    ​​ISSN 2475-2525


​Free Stories via Email
Official Masthead HERE

Listed at Duotrope
​ISSN 2475-2525
Donate so we can pay contributors
Picture
​​© Intrinsick MMXV-MMXXII
all rights reserved​